The blizzard of 1888 began as just another east-coast snowstorm. Vehicular traffic, such as it was, would be slowed down. Some businesses would close. People would be stranded. But telecommunications, particularly long distance telecommunications, would continue. It must continue - the economy of the United States depended upon it.

It didn’t work out quite that way.

The snows continued. The Northeast was paralyzed. Drifts as high as houses developed, every highway was blocked, and train service was knocked out. Two hundred ships were grounded, and overall more than 400 deaths were reported.

The days leading up to the blizzard had been unseasonably mild, with temperatures in the 40s and 50s. On March 12 the torrential rains that had been falling changed to heavy snow, and the temperature plunged. The snow continued for the next 36 hours. The 48-mile per hour winds created 40-foot high snowdrifts.

All that remained, so far as communications was concerned, was the open wire telephone lines between New York and Boston. And these lines were patrolled and maintained by Bell Telephone crews.

At the time of this once-in-a-lifetime storm, Angus Macdonald was a 23-year-old lineman. Angus and his crew, based in West Boylston, Massachusetts, were responsible for one section of this line. They patrolled constantly, often on snowshoes, and repaired downed and broken lines as they came upon them.

When the storm abated the Bell Company, always quick to recognize a public relations opportunity, commissioned the artist Ernest Hamlin Baker to commemorate the occasion. Angus was chosen to be the model, and the resultant drawing (and in later years a painting based on it) would serve as an inspiration to telephone industry employees. It was, in fact, adopted by the Telephone Pioneers of America as their identifying symbol. The painting became known as The Spirit of Service.

It might be educational to look at the status of the telephone plant the year of the storm. In short, it wasn’t very good.

The first long distance line for public use was opened between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, on January 12, 1881. The circuit consisted of several lengths of galvanized iron wire, tied end to end. A single conductor was used, with earth ground providing the return path. The quality of transmission was terrible, and the system was virtually unusable – until one day a young engineer named Carty used two such wires, and connected the telephone between them. This avoided the need for a ground return. He gave instructions to the operator in distant Providence to do the same, and the improvement was remarkable. Thus was born the metallic circuit.

Load coils had not yet been invented, and, of course, all systems were manual. The automatic switching system of Almon Brown Strowger was still a year away. (See  “Almon Brown Strowger and Patent No. 447,918”, OSP® Magazine, May 2008, Page 42.)

Open wires in cities were something to behold. The mass of wires came close to blotting out the sun. The largest assemblage of such wires was along West Street in New York, where there were a series of 90-foot, 30-crossarm, 300-wire poles. During the storm the poles, according to AT&T’s general superintendent, “were waving around like feathers.”

Through it all, Macdonald and his crew carried on, providing the only communications with the outside world.

The tradition of passing this famous print to each President of the Telephone Pioneers began in 1970, when AT&T Chairman H.I. Romnes presented it to Pioneer President Robert D. Lilley. Since then copies of the print have been displayed in telephone museums, telephone company lobbies, and in private collections by the thousands. The The Spirit of Service reminds telco employees the world over that service remains our Number One priority.